In recent years it has become popular to package various types of material, especially medicinal or quasi-medicinal types in sealed cartridges, insertable in a suitable type of holder and/or ejector device, for purposes of preserving purity of the medicament and the like, insuring a patient of accurately measured quantities, as well as minimizing effort now required in introducing bulk amounts of material in a syringe and ejecting measured quantities thereof, for example. Various previous efforts in this direction are illustrated and described in various prior U.S. patents, particularly U.S. Pat. No. 3,581,399 to Dragan, dated June 1, 1971, in which a typical example of loaded cartridge is illustrated in conjunction with one type of holder and discharge device. The present invention primarily comprises an improvement over this particular patented structure.
Other efforts have been made to produce similar devices, one of these comprising the subject matter of prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,900,954, also to Dragan, dated Aug. 26, 1975, and comprising a simpler version than in Dragan's '399 patent.
Still further, prior U.S. Pat. No. 2,917,830 to Cerveris, dated Dec. 22, 1959; No. 3,521,356 to Newman, dated July 21, 1970; and No. 3,854,209 to Franklin et al, dated Dec. 17, 1974 illustrate still other efforts and in which, for example, it will be seen in the Newman and Franklin et al patents that bayonet slots have been employed to secure a cap to a barrel member for purposes of holding a cartridge upon one end of the barrel. The Cerveris patent has a pivoted supporting member for the cartridge, which is held in association with the barrel by means of a pivoted latch.
For one reason or another, these foregoing efforts are susceptible to improvement, and the present invention constitutes such an improvement for the reasons set forth below.